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2016 President

Sabato's Crystal Ball

THE THREATENING THIRTIES

For the first time in his presidency, Barack Obama finds his aggregate approval rating hovering right at 40%. In some polls, he has already fallen below it: According to Gallup, the president’s approval dropped to 39% three times in November. Currently, RealClearPolitics’ aggregation of approval polls finds the president’s approval right at 40.1% while HuffPost Pollster shows 41.5%. Both show a consistent downward trend over the last few months. While Gallup’s three-day tracking had the president’s approval at 41% on Wednesday, it has been lower. In August 2011, Obama’s approval rating in Gallup dropped to 38%, remaining around 40% until late October. This previous encounter with the “dirty thirties” buoyed Republican hopes that Obama could be beaten in the 2012 presidential election. But as events proved (for the umpteenth time), a year in politics is a long time. Looking back at Gallup’s approval polls since World War II, Obama’s predecessors have a varied history in their tangles with sub-40% approval ratings, with some recovering, some stagnating and others falling further into the disapproval abyss. And as the 2014 midterm elections approach, it is worth noting that only two presidents in the Gallup era have had approval ratings below 40% at

Geoffrey Skelley

Kennedy & Me

John F. Kennedy speaks at Granby High School in Norfolk, VA, on Nov. 4, 1960. Credit: Associated Press. Choosing the topic of this article was easy for me, because it’s a personal story. No, it’s not your usual “Kennedy and me” tale. I never even shook hands with John F. Kennedy. But his presidential saga, tragic assassination and evolutionary image coincided with my coming of age, influenced the career path I chose and defined the political world I analyze for a living. Kennedy is bound up with the memories of my youth. When I think of Kennedy, I think of my devout Roman Catholic parents. My father was exactly JFK’s age and a fellow World War II veteran, while my mother was only a few years older than Jackie, with Caroline and John-John the image of my younger family members. I visualize my Catholic school, the priests and the nuns, my lay teachers and classmates, and a time distant and yet near. As a person piles up the years, writing about the past has an irresistible allure as powerful sentiment and a yearning for what once was become a part of many evenings. Born in 1952 and raised in the

Larry J. Sabato

Center for Politics’ new app provides dramatic, living history of Kennedy assassination

The JFK Half Century App, produced by the University of Virginia Center for Politics, is now available for download on Android and Apple devices. The app features the complete Dallas police recordings from Nov. 22, 1963, which the Center acquired from the National Archives and is available to the public in one easily accessible place for the first time. What follows is the text of Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato’s introduction to the app, which you can listen to below. — The Editors Welcome to the JFK app. I am Larry Sabato, author of The Kennedy Half Century. My book traces the effect John F. Kennedy had over 10 Presidential administrations. This app allows you to listen to the audio recordings from the day of the assassination made by the Dallas Police Department and you can follow along with the written transcripts. As I demonstrate in the book, the Dictabelt is not the time tunnel to ultimate truth about the source of the Dealey Plaza shots as it was once heralded to be, but the recording is invaluable nonetheless. What we call the Dictabelt is actually a collection of belts that recorded all police communications on two channels

Larry J. Sabato

Not Their Cup of Tea: The Republican Establishment versus the Tea Party

With the 2013 government shutdown and debt ceiling crisis now behind us, one conclusion seems inescapable — this was a disaster for the Republican Party. While both major parties received negative reviews from the American public for their performance in the crisis, it was the GOP that took by far the bigger hit to its image and standing in national polls. In the midst of the crisis, the Gallup Poll found that the percentage of Americans rating the Republican Party unfavorably was the highest ever recorded for either party since they began asking the party favorability question in 1992. The shutdown and debt limit impasse were almost exclusively the work of the Tea Party and its allies inside and outside of Congress. External groups like Heritage Action and FreedomWorks along with right-wing media commentators like Rush Limbaugh played key roles as cheerleaders for these confrontations. And members of Congress affiliated with the Tea Party, most prominently first-term Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), were the strongest supporters of the shutdown and debt ceiling conflicts and the most vocal opponents of the deal to end the crisis. In the aftermath of the crisis, there are signs of a growing divide within the GOP

Alan I. Abramowitz

The cost of Ted Cruz’s rebellion

“Sounds like we got trouble in River City… Good citizens, make your check payable to Cruz Against Soviet Healthcare. Or just ‘CASH'” — Republican operative and commentator Mike Murphy, Oct. 25 Those in the political world with nothing better to do Friday night were transfixed on C-SPAN or Twitter, following along with Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) speech in Des Moines to the Republican Party of Iowa. Among those were members of the hard-to-define “Republican Establishment.” The best way to describe the establishment is that they are the people who think that the 87 House Republicans who voted to end the government shutdown and increase the debt limit two weeks ago cast a smart vote, as opposed to the 144 other Republicans in the House who didn’t. Murphy (@murphymike), an alum from John McCain’s rogue 2000 presidential campaign and a Meet the Press regular, was one of the establishment Republicans tweeting snark about Cruz during his speech (example above). Another was Alex Castellanos (@alexcast), best known these days as a commentator on CNN. In response to a Cruz comment that dumping every Washington strategist in the ocean would be “a good start,” Castellanos cracked that he could “recommend a good finish.”

Kyle Kondik

In Kennedy assassination, Dallas unfairly blamed

This essay first appeared in Sunday’s Dallas Morning News. Mere moments after Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald, and two days after Oswald fired the shots that killed President John F. Kennedy, the professional football team from the city where the president was murdered took the field in Cleveland. Back then, the Dallas Cowboys were not “America’s Team” — rather, they were a sad-sack franchise in the midst of a string of unsuccessful seasons after their founding in 1960. Added to the burdens of playing losing football was a far greater one that day on the shores of Lake Erie: representing Dallas, which stood accused of being an accomplice in the death of a president. It is stunning that the National Football League actually played football just 48 hours after the assassination. Commissioner Pete Rozelle ordered the games to go on because, at the time, he believed that that was the way the slain president would have wanted it. Rozelle later came to realize he had erred, and it’s notable that the NFL, when faced with the calamity of Sept. 11 nearly four decades later, canceled its games scheduled for five days after that tragedy. So the Cowboys went to

Larry J. Sabato

Excerpt: The Kennedy Half Century

Earlier this week, University of Virginia Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato unveiled new information about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy as part of the release of his new book, The Kennedy Half Century. His findings, concerning a recording of the day’s events that some believe is proof of a conspiracy to assassinate the president, are detailed in this exclusive excerpt below. If you missed the announcement, you can watch it here. You can also check out two videos from the press conference, one showing JFK’s vulnerability to an assassination attempt and another highlighting police transmissions from that fateful day. For more information on the book and the Center’s Kennedy Legacy Project, visit www.TheKennedyHalfCentury.org. — The Editors Hundreds of books and studies have been written about the Kennedy assassination. Alert readers have noticed that their authors often use the words “alleged,” “claimed,” and “supposedly” — just as I have done in this book. The debate over the Kennedy assassination is one of the longest-running sagas in American history, involving hundreds of subplots. Facts and quasifacts have dribbled out over five decades. Quite a few of these “facts” are unverifiable or only partially verifiable — which does not necessarily

Larry J. Sabato

WATCH LIVE TUESDAY: SABATO TO UNVEIL NEW FINDING ON JFK ASSASSINATION

University of Virginia Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato will reveal a major new finding regarding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 15, and Crystal Ball readers will be able to watch it LIVE online here. For iPhone and iPad users, the press conference will be available at this link. The finding calls into question one of the conclusions of a major government report on the JFK assassination. This is not a new theory; rather, Sabato will describe scientific findings about a key piece of evidence that undergirds a government study. Additionally, Sabato will further discuss the JFK assassination, as well as reveal new information about President Kennedy’s enduring impact on his nine successors in the White House. He will also discuss a major new public opinion survey on the American people’s opinions on JFK and the Kennedy legacy. The live webcast will kick off the Center for Politics’ Kennedy Legacy Project, which includes: Sabato’s new book; a website; a forthcoming international PBS documentary produced by the Emmy-winning Center for Politics and Community Idea Stations team; a free online course on JFK, beginning Oct. 21 and available through Coursera and iTunes U;

UVA Center for Politics

It’s Early But the 2016 Presidential Primary Calendar is Taking Shape

We’re happy to welcome Davidson College visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science Josh Putnam back to the Crystal Ball. Readers may remember Josh from the last election cycle, when his FrontloadingHQ blog became a must-read for anyone tracking the rules and calendar that governed the 2012 presidential nomination process. This week, Josh gives us an early look at how the presidential primary season is developing on both sides and how certain states are either arming or disarming in the race to the front of the primary calendar. — The Editors In the year after — and honestly for some time before — the 2012 presidential election, talk among the pundit class and in circles in and outside of Washington shifted to who may next occupy the White House following the 2016 cycle. Such is the rite that is the invisible primary. However, the candidates, prospective or otherwise, are but one part — the most visible part — of this period between the last presidential general election and the first contest of the next presidential nomination cycle. Garnering far less attention, yet almost perpetually occurring, are the almost ad hoc machinations of various national and state-level actors in setting the rules

Josh Putnam

Measuring Virginia Vote Share

In 2009, now-Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) won the Virginia gubernatorial election in a 17-percentage point rout. Three years later, President Barack Obama (D) won Virginia by almost four percentage points en route to reelection. The obvious story centered around differences in turnout: In 2009, just 40.4% of registered voters turned out to vote, and that year’s exit poll found that 78% of voters were white. Just 16% were African American, and Latino and Asian-American voters made up just 5% of the vote. As for party ID, the electorate was 37% Republican and 33% Democratic. In 2012, 71.8% of registered voters showed up at the polls, and the exit poll showed that 70% of voters were white, 20% were African American, 5% were Latino and 3% were Asian American. The electorate was 39% Democratic versus just 32% Republican. Clearly, the make-ups of the 2009 and 2012 electorates were very different. Yet above the demographics, most Virginia localities* actually contributed nearly the same share of the vote in both the 2009 and 2012 elections. For example, take Virginia Beach, the state’s biggest city. In 2009, its voters made up 5.06% of the statewide total; in 2012, they made up 5.10%. That’s almost

Geoffrey Skelley

Why Campaign “Game-Changers” Rarely Change the Game

We’re pleased to feature a column by political scientists John Sides and Lynn Vavreck about their excellent new book, The Gamble: Choice and Chance in the 2012 Presidential Election. We heartily recommend it to anyone who wants to understand what did (and didn’t) matter in 2012 and what factors are worth noting as we look ahead to 2016. — The Editors At the end of the 2012 presidential campaign, Tim Murphy of Mother Jones magazine undertook what became a monumental task: to count all the “game-changers” in the campaign identified by journalists and commentators. In total, he counted 68. Some of those moments were noted in jest, like Lindsay Lohan’s apparent endorsement of Mitt Romney. Some were more plausible, like the killing of Osama bin Laden. Regardless, 68 is a big number — enough for nearly three game-changers a week between May and Election Day. If you can’t quite recall three game-changers a week, don’t worry. There’s nothing wrong with your memory. In our new book about the 2012 race, The Gamble, we show that almost all of the alleged game-changers were better described as “game-samers.” These events may have driven a few news cycles, but rarely did they move

John Sides and Lynn Vavreck

MIND THE GAP

News reports that deem a gender gap in polling noteworthy — with women as more Democratic and men as more Republican — are falling into a trap described by a journalistic cliché: They’re reporting when a dog bites a man. That’s because it would be far more unusual — akin to a man biting a dog — for there not to be a gender gap in a federal statewide race. First, as most readers surely know, there’s been a noticeable gender gap in presidential voting for the last 30 years. Chart 1 shows how men and women have voted going back to 1972, when the national exit poll started. Remarkably, men and women voted for Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford in precisely the same proportions in 1976. The real gender gap started in 1980, when men preferred Ronald Reagan to a much greater extent than did women. Since then, women have regularly voted 6-10% more Democratic than men — or if you prefer, men have voted 6-10% more Republican than women. Chart 1: Gender gap in U.S. presidential elections, 1972-2012 What may not be so well known is how persistent this gender gap is in individual state-level presidential battles and

Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley

Rand Paul: Barry Goldwater 2.0?

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was asked recently what he would do in the event of a 2016 presidential contest between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (D) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY). “It’s gonna be a tough choice,” he said with a laugh. McCain’s ambivalence about a potential Clinton-Paul choice is primarily because of foreign policy: McCain is largely a hawk and Paul is largely a dove, to put it simply. In a Clinton-Paul contest, McCain and many other Washington neoconservatives would be ideologically closer to Clinton than Paul, at least on foreign policy. That doesn’t mean that McCain and others would actively support Clinton, but it does mean that Paul, a likely contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, would have to cut through the establishment to win the nomination. If he got it, the response from many Republicans would be tepid. A Paul ascendancy would inevitably be compared to the rise of Barry Goldwater, who outmaneuvered a series of mainstream Republicans to capture the 1964 Republican presidential nomination. Paul wouldn’t want to replicate the shellacking Goldwater got in the general election, but he probably would try to change the course of the GOP, just like Goldwater. Despite

Kyle Kondik

The Race for the White House – a follow-up

Programming note: The Crystal Ball is taking a pre-Labor Day break next week. Our next edition will be Thursday, Sept. 5. We hope everyone has a great holiday. — The Editors Thanks to the many readers who sent us e-mails or tweets about our ranking of the 2016 presidential contenders last week. We thought we would follow up by responding to some common questions here: Rick Santorum? Puh-leeze – We moved Santorum up in our ratings primarily just because we wanted to move Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) below him. The former Pennsylvania senator deserves some respect for being the runner-up last time, but in all reality his potential bid would be an even-bigger longshot than last time. We doubt he gets higher than sixth on this list. Our readers were right to question his apparent upward movement. Where’s Jeb Bush? — As we’ve noted previously, we just don’t see the former Florida governor as an actual candidate. We hosted his son, George P. Bush, here last year, and we interpreted his comments as a strong indication that his father wasn’t running (see the second-to-last paragraph of our April ratings for more). If that changed, we would put him on our

Larry J. Sabato and Kyle Kondik

Enrollment opens for Professor Sabato’s free online course “The Kennedy Half Century”

Enrollment is now open for Prof. Larry J. Sabato’s free online course about President John F. Kennedy’s life, administration and legacy. The four-week, massive open online course (MOOC), “The Kennedy Half Century,” will begin on Oct. 21, with two hours of video instruction each week by Prof. Sabato. The course is available through Coursera, an educational website that partners with some of the world’s top universities, including the University of Virginia, to provide free online courses. Anyone can register for the course at www.coursera.org/course/kennedy. The MOOC is one of several initiatives the U.Va. Center for Politics is unveiling this fall in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination. Prof. Sabato’s latest book, The Kennedy Half Century: The Presidency, Assassination and Lasting Legacy of John F. Kennedy, will be released in October as the class begins. Also in October, the Center will premiere a one-hour national PBS documentary on the same subject, which is being produced in partnership with Community Idea Stations. The Center for Politics and Community Idea Stations recently received an Emmy Award for their previous documentary, “Out of Order,” which is about political dysfunction in Washington. A trailer for the “The Kennedy Half Century” class is available

UVA Center for Politics